Cut the Romantic Crap

Today's word:

quixotic: (adjective) impulsive and unpredictable; extravagantly romantic or impractical [quick-zot-ick]

I have to admit. I looked this one up before posting just to be sure I had it right. One of my former students used it for the Q word on his alphabet autobiography (see previous post on that topic), and I've liked the word ever since. It's kind of fun to say. One thing I didn't realize before, though, was it comes from the name of the title character in Miguel de Cervantes' novel Don Quixote -- the guy who thought he was a knight fighting dragons, but he was really fighting windmills. Makes perfect sense.

Want examples?

When I was a junior in college (right before I met my husband), I dated this guy named Phillip. He was so quixotic, it made me want to puke. He used to stand below my balcony and read poetry really loudly until I came out to tell him to stop. Yeah, I know... EWWWW. Ironically, I wrote a poem about that ("ready or not").

Chivalry is dead. Quixoticism killed it.